


lost in the spaces between generations

by ghostinthebook



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Gen, Jace Wayland Needs A Hug, POV Jace Wayland, céline and stephen herondale are mentioned heavily, not in french but is about the french language kinda?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 12:31:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18073454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostinthebook/pseuds/ghostinthebook
Summary: Jace has been taking a class at a community college. Which class, you ask? French.





	lost in the spaces between generations

**Author's Note:**

> Just a warning, I know absolutely no French, I speak English and I know a tiny bit of Spanish. So, I apologize for any mistakes in the few lines in French. Anyway, here you go, enjoy!

“Je m’appelle Jace, où est mon ami?” Jace muttered under his breath. He wrote the lines down on the paper, checking the spelling and conjugation with his notes. His face furrowed up as he thought of the next line.

“Mon ami est… à la bibliothèque.” His pencil broke. He searched for the sharpener, over his notebook, binder, and French textbook.

He had only learned recently that his mom was French. Hell, he only learned recently who his mom even was. But here he was. Half French his whole life and he never knew it until Valentine finally told everyone his true heritage.

But once he learned about this, who he really was, he wanted, no he needed a way to feel closer to his parents. His biological ones, that is. Valentine was a sorry excuse for a father figure, he felt no need to be closer to him, and with Robert and Maryse, he only needed to ask them a question for it to be, most likely, answered.

But his biological parents, Céline and Stephen Herondale, he couldn’t ask them anything, they would never be able to answer. So, to be closer to them, he had to be creative.

Once he found out he was half French because of his mom, he told Clary. “That explains why you wanted to take me to Paris, doesn’t it?” she had said, partly joking, but Jace had to admit there was some truth to it. For just a romantic city, there were many places that fit that description. But whenever he thought of taking Clary somewhere not in America, he thought of Paris. And here he is, half French, and he didn’t even know it. A weird coincidence, or fate, Jace thought.

Either way, Clary was the one who suggested he take French lessons at the local community college. He could’ve learned from another Shadowhunter, but this felt too personal to him. If he had to learn from someone, then he wanted to learn either from a friend, or from a stranger. Not from someone who only knew him as the angel-blooded experiment from Valentine. And since none of his friends knew French, he went to the community college. And it was actually going great. He made a mundane friend, Georgie. They tried to (and failed, a lot of the time) to text each other in French to practice. And even though she would never be as close a friend as Alec, or Izzy, or hell even Simon (she didn’t know his real job, or really anything much about his life), she was still a nice little mundane change. Her and Clary got along well too, which was always nice. It had only been a few lessons, and with every word he wrote he still had to check his notes, but he was making progress.

Clary was the only one who knew he was trying to learn this. He knew his friends wouldn’t have made fun of him or anything, but it was extremely personal to him. He wanted to wait a bit longer to tell them, but if they found out somehow, he wouldn’t mind.

There’s the pencil sharpener. He twisted his pencil through the sharpener while thinking of the next sentence in his homework assignment.

“Write about yourself and one of your friends,” the teacher had said. She said they could also use any website but Google Translate to help write. Jace would bet real money that half the class had already broken that rule, but he didn’t want to give in, at least not yet. He’s only two sentences in. With… a lot more to go. It didn’t matter how much more. French was hard.

There was also the fact that he was not at his room in the Institute doing this. He was at Magnus’s loft, because Alec wanted him to join him and Magnus there to do research on a certain kind of Greater Demon. It was easy enough to sneak his French homework in the bag. And then the two lovebirds left for date night. Perfect opportunity.

So instead of researching the Greater Demon, or being a menace in general around Magnus’s loft, he was stressing over his homework.

Is this what being a mundane teenager is like?

He wrote down what felt like paragraphs more, but were actually five more sentences. But it felt like more because with every sentence, he had to check everything. He still hadn’t used Google Translate. Yet.

He was about to start the eighth sentence when the sounds of a Portal hit the air. And his French homework was all over the table.

Jace cussed as he tried to grab everything all at once, putting the loose papers back in the binder as quick as he possibly could, stacking the notebook on top of the binder and textbook, and throwing it all into his bag before Magnus and Alec walked into the room. He was quite proud of himself for getting it cleaned up so fast, if he does say so himself.

Magnus and Alec look significantly happier than they did before they left, Jace noted. Their smiles were wide, and judging by the bag in Alec’s hand, they had went to the Jade Wolf and brought some back.

“Here, for you,” Alec said, handing the food to Jace.

“I knew there was a reason I made you my parabatai,” Jace replied, happily grabbing the bag and moving to the table again.

Which had one last page of Jace’s French notes on it.

Oh f-

“What’s this?” Magnus asked, grabbing the page before Jace could turn back and grab it. He looked at it in confusion before speaking. “French vocab words?”

“I’m holding it for Clary,” Jace said quickly. He went to grab it before they could notice he put his-

“Then why is your name on the top?” Alec said.

Jace did a lot of cussing in his head, and right then was no exception.

“Okay, they’re not Clary’s, they’re my notes. I’m learning French at a community college,” Jace said, head down and eyes not meeting either man’s. He wasn’t ashamed, but it felt worse than if they had walked in on him naked or something. He felt very vulnerable.

“French? Why?” Alec said. He didn’t sound like he was judging, he sounded genuinely curious.

“Because my biological mom was French, so I’m half French, and I just wanted to… connect to my roots a bit more. Feel closer to my mom, y’know?” Jace was feeling a bit more confident, since they hadn’t judged him yet. He didn’t expect them to, but there was a little voice in the back of his head that sounded suspiciously like Valentine telling him they would. He tried not to listen to that voice, and instead listened to what Magnus and Alec were actually saying.

“I understand,” Magnus said. Jace knew that he actually did. He had never heard Magnus speak Indonesian, but he knew that was his first language. The one that his mother spoke.

Magnus understands.

Alec just gave Jace a hug. Alec was the only one in the room with a living mother, so even though he couldn’t fully understand the situation, he could understand that his parabatai needed a hug.

Once Alec was done hugging, Jace spoke again.

“Well, since the cat’s out of the bag, guess I’ll take my homework back out. Gotta finish it before class tomorrow. You mind if I stay here a bit longer?” Jace asked.

“Not at all,” Magnus said. “We’ll just be… somewhere,” he added with a wink. Him and Alec walked over to their bedroom, holding hands.

Jace took his notebook and everything out again.

“Mon ami et son copain sont bons,” he wrote. Man, he sure hoped his French was right. He may or may not have used Google Translate at this point.

“À ma mère,” he wrote at the top of the page.

To my mom.


End file.
